Down Station by Simon Morden Page A

her entire life, was it?
    Into the forest? Back to the river?
    She looked one way, then the other.
    ‘Fuck it.’
    She turned on her heel and stamped back to the tree line, and the turbaned kid trailed after her, still carrying his stick.
    ‘I’m Dalip,’ he said.
    ‘Congratulations.’
    ‘Your—’
    ‘I’m what? You don’t get to say what I am.’ She whipped around, and he was proffering her discarded bandanna.
    ‘Bandanna,’ and he held it out to her. ‘You dropped it earlier.’
    She could take it, she could snatch it. She stopped and thought about what to do. Then she reached out and held out her hand, palm up. He dropped the cloth, and she caught it.
    ‘Thanks. Dalip.’
    ‘That’s okay …’
    ‘Mary.’
    She carried on walking ahead of him, and through the place at the edge of the forest where the fire was. It wasn’t like anything had happened in the last few minutes to make her stay there, so she kept on, out into the sunlight. She went down by the river, to wash her bandanna, and her face.
    The river had reversed its flow, and the fish had gone. The water was fresh, and she self-consciously filled her hands with it and tried to pour some into her mouth. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever done that before; judging by the amount that disappeared cold and clear down her neck, she was, at the very least, out of practice.
    The sun was going down, sinking behind the ridge of rock that had formed the backdrop to their arrival. The sky was now a deep blue, still with the white, ragged clouds blowing in from the sea, and the seagulls wheeled and cried.
    Their cries were answered by a long, high-pitched wail that echoed across the open landscape. She’d never heard anything like it before, but she reacted instantly; she stood bolt upright and scanned the tree line, the river, the grasses, for movement of any kind. Mama and the Chinese woman did the same, a little way off.
    Time stretched out, and her beating heart slowed enough to allow her to breathe again. As the sound faded into the wind and the memory, Mama shook her head and knelt at the water’s edge again.
    Mary wasn’t so ready to let her guard down. The initial sounds of disaster had been nothing more than distant thunder above ground, a booming growl under it. Yet they’d all ended up running for their lives, and most of them had lost the race. She waited and watched.
    And it came again. It sounded like it could have come from a musical instrument, a trumpet or a horn. Except it didn’t quite, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled as they rose. There was no way of telling which direction the sound was coming from: out to sea, from the forest, from the hills, or further away towards the mountains. It just seemed to be.
    She tied her damp bandanna around her hair, and went to see Mama, who was gathering up the gutted fish by hooking her fingers through the open gills. Grace did the same, and still there were fish left over.
    ‘Mary, pick up the rest.’
    Mary screwed her face up. ‘They’re dead.’
    ‘They’re dinner, girl. ’Less you want to go hungry.’
    She didn’t, but neither did she want to touch the cold, slimy things with dark, unblinking eyes. She changed the subject. ‘What was that noise just now?’
    ‘Some kind of animal? I don’t know.’ She looked down at the remaining fish at the river’s edge. ‘I do know that those aren’t going to carry themselves.’
    ‘But what sort of animal? I mean: there was that big snake in the sea. What if there are more on land?’
    ‘Dinosaurs,’ said Grace. ‘The boy with the turban was worried about dinosaurs.’
    ‘So what does a dinosaur sound like?’
    ‘No one knows. They’ve been dead for millions of years.’ She too stared pointedly at the fish. ‘We don’t need to worry about dinosaurs. Just those.’
    Defeated, Mary forced her painted nails one by one into the gills, until she had three heavy fish hanging from each hand. She held them away from her